Pickup Artists

[magisme]

Issue came up between me and estrangedtwat over in general discussion.

What are they?

Have you read any of the material?

Have you tried it? Has it been tried on you?

What do you think about them?

What do you think about the phenomenon in general?

- Is it good or bad?

- Is it duping sex starved men?

- Is it addressing a legitimate issue in contemporary society?

....and anything else.

I guess this is the best known work:

[Iron MikeyJ]

What is this? I would like more info Magisme.

[Lio]

Don't think it's ever been tried on me, never heard of the book either, don't think I know anyone who reads books like that. I have once read a 'selfhelp' book, I read it in part because I thought it was funny and in part because I was single for a while and was curious about the book, Mars and Venus on a Date. After a while, I really started getting into the book, talking about it with friends etc. At about the same time, I started reading Bridget Jones' Diary. I suddenly realized that it was like reading my diary! Very scary and hilarious at the same time. Even Mars and Venus was mentioned, I believe. I stopped reading the Mars and Venus book and got back to just being myself without overanalyzing things and I turned out okay. So I don't really believe in those books.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Lio

[Jakey Styley]

Uh...

[magisme]

What is this? I would like more info Magisme.

It's basically a "community" of men who have more or less formalized the "art" of picking up women. It's become a substantial self-help industry for guys who have trouble in that area. The reason that book is titled The Game is because the learned and applied skill is often more colloquially called "game."

Edited July 16, 2014 by magisme

[The Glow Inc.]

I can sum up what all pickup artists say : be yourself, don't be apologetic, be self-amused and laugh rejection off when it happens.

It's easier said than done because most guys have done the exact opposite for years ( pretend to be someone else, try to be overly-nice, always serious and when rejected react very badly ), including me, but I can guarantee that when you don't pay attention to that nagging voice in your head and when you don't care if you get the girl, well, you usually do get the girl.

EDIT : and by "be yourself", I mean be your "real" self ( kinda like you are with your best male friend ), not your creepy loser self.

Edited July 16, 2014 by The Glow Inc.

[DieselDaisy]

Pick up help advice is all arse because it tells you to be, something you are not. It is best to be yourself.

[arnold layne]

No the book is way too long.

[Snake-Pit]

Alnico II Pro Humbucker from Seymour Duncan called an APH-1. Slash uses 2 of them as both bridge and neck pickup.

Pickup/Artist

[DieselDaisy]

I want to try Snakepit's chat up lines.

[Ace Nova]

I invented the game. You all should have already known this, given my screen name.

[Graeme]

I just think it's a bit... cynical, you know? It kinda requires you to view the world's population (or the % of the world's population to which you are attracted) as a bit of a meat market to be exploited. Maybe that's fine if you're just looking to get laid but if you want to find someone who means something to you, then is viewing them as a goal to be attained through a variety of employable techniques and by meeting a set of predetermined standards, rather than as a person there to capture your heart, not just a little bit soul-destroying?

Then again I am a life-long single loser who never had a girl look twice at him until a few months ago, so maybe I'm wrong. I know plenty of ruthless, abusive, misogynistic arseholes who have had all sorts of success with women... I'd just rather not believe that they deserve it and their behaviour should be rewarded.

[arnold layne]

I just think it's a bit... cynical, you know? It kinda requires you to view the world's population (or the % of the world's population to which you are attracted) as a bit of a meat market to be exploited. Maybe that's fine if you're just looking to get laid but if you want to find someone who means something to you, then is viewing them as a goal to be attained through a variety of employable techniques and by meeting a set of predetermined standards, rather than as a person there to capture your heart, not just a little bit soul-destroying?

Then again I am a life-long single loser who never had a girl look twice at him until a few months ago, so maybe I'm wrong. I know plenty of ruthless, abusive, misogynistic arseholes who have had all sorts of success with women... I'd just rather not believe that they deserve it and their behaviour should be rewarded.

BItches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.

[DieselDaisy]

Then again I am a Scottish bloke who never had another country look twice at him until, never basically, so maybe I'm wrong. I know plenty of ruthless, abusive, misogynistic arseholes, i.e. the English, who have had all sorts of success with women... I'd just rather not believe that they deserve it and their behaviour should be rewarded.

Corrected.

(Sorry, but a Graeme post without a bit of the ole', Anglo-Scottish relations, in it, is simply, not, a Graeme post).

[Lithium]

Alnico II Pro Humbucker from Seymour Duncan called an APH-1. Slash uses 2 of them as both bridge and neck pickup.

Pickup/Artist

Read between the lines, and you guys can learn a lot from this post.

[Johnny Drama]

If I read between the lines, there's empty space.

[TeeJay410]

No the book is way too long.

Yeah if it doesn't have pictures and talking animals, Nate has a hard time following along.

[downzy]

Loved Neil Strauss's book "The Game." I read a review of it when it came out and bought a copy. Even if you're not interested in pick-up it's still an entertaining story. It's the kind of book that I wish I had read growing up as a teenager. I did a little investigating into the community after I read the book out of fascination, but never really participated.

Some guys get into because they're actually trying to improve their ability to meet women (others are just looking to improve their odds of scoring). For some men (like KK apparently), meeting women comes naturally. In Strauss' book they call guys like this 'naturals' (creative, I know). It's not always great looking guys; we all know guys who get great looking and fun to be with women who aren't the greatest in the looks department. It's just something about them that women find attractive. Then there's everyone else, called AFCs (average frustrated chumps). They might be successful, they might be good looking, they might be short/tall/fat/skinny/weird, but they all share one thing in common: meeting women isn't easy for them. These are the guys who started the online pick-up community.

It's sort of been touched on earlier, but the basic lesson taught within the pickup community is to be your best self. One of the mistakes AFCs make is they're hardly ever honest, often hiding their true feelings towards the girl they like or trying way too hard to impress. By being "too nice," they send the message that they're not worthy of the girl's attention and affection. It's why spending too much time/money on a girl too soon often comes off desperate. Comparatively, assholes do better with attracting women because they're honest and never let their intentions unknown. Basically, be yourself at all times, no matter how attractive you find the girl you're talking to.

The other part of the pickup community discusses tactics and strategies on how one goes about breaking the ice and moving the interaction along. They all sort of follow the same formula however: get the girl's attention, show active disinterest (this means you talk to the girl as if you're not attracted to her), demonstrate value (some guys use humour, others use magic, others will use mind tricks - like telling something about herself that she doesn't think others know about her, etc.), building comfort/rapport, establish an interest on her part, call the shots. Basically, the number one rule for these guys is that they don't express an interest in a girl until she expresses towards them first.

If you've ever seen the movie Magnolia, you'll remember the Tom Cruise character as he runs a seminar on how to meet women. The online pick-up community, based on what I know from Strauss's book (I never bothered going much further, other than reading some of the suggested books that were loosely related to the pick-up community - like The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley) is sort of like that scene. Some guys aren't so pathetic, others are.

Basically, the pickup community tries to be one thing but ends up often being about something completely else. The purpose was initially meet and attract women, but far too often it's nothing more than men trying to impress each other.

Like I said, I never really bothered doing any of the stuff that Strauss talks about in the books. It did provide me a lot of insight into today's means of courtship, to the point I could tell within a minute or two if my buddy was going to get anywhere with a girl he was hitting on. But I could never get myself to do any of it. Just wasn't me. Not to say I wasn't dating , but I never used anything I learned on the girls I dated. In the end, I ended up with a great girl who liked me even if I wasn't putting forward my "best self" (though she later acknowledged she was under the presumption that I wasn't interested after our first date, so perhaps some of it did rub off inadvertently).

Here's Neil Strauss explaining his book and the pick-up community:

They also did a reality show based on this pick-up world. I never saw it, looked terrible, but the Mystery guy is the guy who tutored Neil Strauss:

Edited July 17, 2014 by downzy

[SoulMonster]

If you struggle to connect with girls then I see no reason why you shouldn't be open for some advice, and if that advice is found in a book then there's really nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. But as for "The Game", it seems to me that for some men what they learn or get out of it is that dating itself is some "game" where the objective is to use subterfuge and manipulation to "trick" girls into fucking you, and that is not a premise I share.

[netcat]

i'm obviously not an expert, but i think pickup is kind of a tool. how to use it and what for - it depends on a person.

sometimes it helps, sometimes it's like give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself

Edited July 17, 2014 by netcat

[downzy]

If you struggle to connect with girls then I see no reason why you shouldn't be open for some advice, and if that advice is found in a book then there's really nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. But as for "The Game", it seems to me that for some men what they learn or get out of it is that dating itself is some "game" where the objective is to use subterfuge and manipulation to "trick" girls into fucking you, and that is not a premise I share.

Yeah, a lot of guys in the Strauss's book definitely fall into the later category that you describe. There is a sad and pathetic faction within the community, as described by Strauss in his book, that is misogynistic and seek nothing other than to manipulate women out of some deep-seeded anger towards them. But for many men, the art of seduction and communicating to women is lost on them.

One of my favourite quotes from the book is by Carol Gilligan, a psychologist who specializes in female psychology, who states: "People use to look out on the playground and say that the boys were playing soccer and the girls were doing nothing. But the girls weren't doing nothing - they were talking. They were talking about the world to one another. And they became very expert about that in a way the boys did not." At least in my own experience, I look back and I think how advanced or further along girls were, relative to boys, at relating and talking to each other. I do think what Strauss and other pickup-artists like him touch upon is how bad they are at relating to women.

[DieselDaisy]

Fuck that book. It sounds like a headache. I mean,

show active disinterest (this means you talk to the girl as if you're not attracted to her), demonstrate value (some guys use humour, others use magic, others will use mind tricks - like telling something about herself that she doesn't think others know about her, etc.), building comfort/rapport, establish an interest on her part, call the shots. Basically, the number one rule for these guys is that they don't express an interest in a girl until she expresses towards them first.

What? 'Active disinterest'!!

[magisme]

Fuck that book. It sounds like a headache. I mean,

show active disinterest (this means you talk to the girl as if you're not attracted to her), demonstrate value (some guys use humour, others use magic, others will use mind tricks - like telling something about herself that she doesn't think others know about her, etc.), building comfort/rapport, establish an interest on her part, call the shots. Basically, the number one rule for these guys is that they don't express an interest in a girl until she expresses towards them first.

What? 'Active disinterest'!!

It's a way of saying that you talk to her, but your frame is that you want and expect nothing from her. You're not even really interested in her sexually - not until she proves herself worthy, and not until she gives you indication that she's interested, which will happen more often if you appear uninterested. That's the gist.

[DieselDaisy]

I simply cannot bothered with that mindgame stuff. It is all complete twaddle. You know this thing about 'being nice' being a terrible tactic. What if it is not a 'tactic'? What if you are quite nice. Is the book seriously proposing that you should change your genuine character from, 'nice' to 'arsehole'?

[magisme]

I simply cannot bothered with that mindgame stuff. It is all complete twaddle. You know this thing about 'being nice' being a terrible tactic. What if it is not a 'tactic'? What if you are quite nice. Is the book seriously proposing that you should change your genuine character from, 'nice' to 'arsehole'?

I can't speak for the book as I haven't read it, but the response from the "community" (and remember that these are dozens and even hundreds of different dudes with different spins on this thing, it's not homogenous) would be "lol genuinely nice." They'd say that the nice guy, if he took a look at himself with radical honesty, would admit that he is being nice to girls in order to gain their approval. THAT is what they want to eliminate. There's nothing wrong with being "nice" per se, but nice means a lot of different things in a lot of different circumstances. If you are naturally selflessly nice, meaning you give and you care regardless of what you get back from it, that's fine. But when you start along the lines of, "I'm a nice guy. I treat women well and with respect. It's not fair that they don't want to date me or sleep with me when I treat them so well," then you're fucked. That's the shit many of them try to eliminate.

As for the "arsehole" thing.... Very few of them that I've come across advocate being an asshole. They do, however, advocate being fun, playful (teasing) and unapologetic about your sexuality.